


the television glow will keep you safe and warm

by anacaoris



Category: Percy Jackson & The Olympians (Movies), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alive Luke Castellan, Alternate Universe, Changing Tenses, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Jewish Percy Jackson, M/M, Mostly Gen, Self-Indulgent, and this is dictated as well by their emotions, children of Aphrodite control their appearance to small degree
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23604853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anacaoris/pseuds/anacaoris
Summary: Sally gets back from her night shift to find them half-asleep, their tired faces washed by the television light.+Five times Percy and Addie Jackson saw something demigod related on TV, and one time someone else did.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	1. December 20, 1999

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this is self-indulgent, keep scrolling.

" _Tonight, on Dateline NBC: an ex-starlet's two children misteriously went missing five years ago, just before their mother's own death. An unfortunate occurrence, or a sign of something much darker?_ "

Percy's laying on the floor belly-side down, head haloed by a cluster of gold wrappers stained with the sticky, melted remains of chocolate coins. There's pieces of silver and blue wrapping paper here and there, buried in his hair and stuck to his sock, left behind from the yesterday when they'd made a game of cleaning up. Gabe had been out of the house for the night and so they had balled up the paper and played basketball and baseball and made up games while Addie slid through the small kitchen in her new socks and Percy made an effort to keep his new shirt clean. He'd laughed so hard when Mom slipped and fell on her butt and laughed even harder when the kitchen sink blew up on its own and sprayed them all right after. The house still smells like burning candles and jelly doughnuts, even under the winter humidity creeping in and the Febreze Mom sprayed around to mask Gabe's smell.

Addie's got the remote on one hand and places a bug on it with the other; a moth Percy realizes, mottled brown and gray, ugly like moths tend to be, but Addie's always liked bugs and has a mean set of blunt nails so he doesn't say anything and lets her play with it while he watches the show and waits for her to get tired. At least the volume of the TV is low enough so they won't wake up Gabe, who's blessedly asleep in his room and hasn't come out since he came home at around five in the afternoon.

The intro to the show has switched to an old newscast, showing a girl only a little older than Percy, with dark hair that looks like she hacked it off with blunt scissors and big blue eyes — blue like the wrapping paper, like lightning hidden behind gray clouds — and a freckled nose just like Addie's and Mom's. She's pretty, maybe a little sad too, and she's holding her baby brother in her arms while she gives a dazzling smile for the camera. The words **MISSING CHILD ALERT** are spelt out in big, bold letters under the photo.

The show's host says they disappeared years ago. Thalia, that's her name, Thalia Grace, and her little brother Jason, their mother was an actress from those films Mom likes to watch with them during her rare off days: cheesy 80s flicks with blonde permed girls, guys driving muscle cars and going to fast food places with shiny leather furniture, Bon Jovi songs played in front of manicured lawns of Californian suburbs. The type of film where everything was wrapped up in a meat little bow and came on cassettes with the name _BERYL GRACE_ spelt in large, looping letters that dwarf her co-stars. That's her, Beryl Grace, who shows up in old pictures with her too-tight smile and bleached-platinum hair with the roots showing golden-yellow underneath. And Beryl Grace, who wasn't particularly nice or selfless despite all her characters being sweet as spun-sugar, had two kids with an unknown man and it turns out that even if you're rich and pretty and famous, having kids with a stranger that later abandons you is still seen as bad, and Beryl definitely didn't take it as well as Mom did.

Percy plays a game of who got what: Jason has their mom's warm hair, Thalia her nose. He, the tiny mouth. She, the sloped shoulders. In another picture Thalia has one hand raised in a wave and the other in her mom's unrelenting, painful looking grip. They both have slender hands with long, thin fingers. His old music teacher would have liked them, said they were good for playing instruments. Percy has hands like that and he used to play the violin until he left that school after the toilets blew up and flooded one full floor and three classrooms, and the other school's wouldn't take accept him because they didn't take in people without proper training.

"She always talked about their dad like he was a trophy. Like she could use the kids as leverage." There's a parade of ex friends and co-workers talking about Beryl Grace and her missing kids, each of them telling disjointed parts of her story: a kid with ADHD and dyslexia, an alcoholic mom, storms following them everywhere. "I never met him personally, but you'd think, sometimes, that she loved being with him, the idea of him, whatever, that she loved him more than her children.

"Beryl... she always wanted more. I mean, she was a good person, but sometimes... sometimes I worried about her and the kids."

Percy's playing with the end of Addie's hair when a woman shows up on the tv and fake cries about Thalia. She's a carbon copy of Miss Grace even thought they aren't related: same bleached hair and empty eyes, way too thin body. But not like the Palma family three floors down with their two bone-skinny daughters who always smile at Percy and ruffle his hair and call him nice things in Spanish; or the Monclova family next door with their mom that's as delicate as a baby bird and calls Addie nice things in Spanish and gave her an old spider toy and hands them Christmas treats even though she knows they don't do Christmas; or like Mister Treviño, with that slim face and high cheekbones of his, who doesn't really say anything nice about anyone but calls them both _Niño and _Niña_ and sings slivers of old _boleros_ in his reedy voice. The woman on screen is stick thin and has bruises under her eyes and hip bones that stick out of her low jeans, and when she cries Percy wonders how she can even have any water in her, how she doesn't just dry up like a raisin after a few seconds._

__

He doesn't know Thalia Grace, and he probably never will, but Percy doesn't have it in him to care about people who pretend to care for others. There's more pictures of her: Thalia jumping so high, impossibly high, it looks like she's flying, Thalia reaching for the sky during a storm, reaching for the heavy gray clouds, for the rain and crackling lightning that seems to bend and follow her fingertips. She would have been fifteen in a few days if she was still alive.

__

"Close friends of the family say that Thalia and Jason Grace disappeared after the family went out on a picnic. Though some believe they were possibly kidnapped by their unknown father, others believe Beryl could have a hand in what happened to her children as well."

__

Mom gets back from her night shift to find them half-asleep, their tired faces washed by the television light and poring over intensely over the theories about the Grace siblings: death, kidnapping, faked deaths, hidden somewhere with their dad to keep them safe from their mom, fake sightings in different states with Thalia having supposedly been last seen in New York. She picks Addie up — she's so tiny for being six years old — and takes Percy's hand and guides them to their shared bedroom. Percy nods off as Mom brushes the bits of chocolate coin paper from his head, the silver and blue wrapping paper stuck to his pajamas and socks. She tucks Addie on the bottom bunk, then slips into the top one with Percy. It's a snug fit, but Mom manages to curl up on her side so she can see his face even in the dark. In the next room, they can hear Gabe snore.

__

"Mom, do you think moms and dads can hurt their kids? Real moms and dads, I mean."

__

"Not everyone is meant to have kids, Percy. But that doesn't justify treating them badly, or hurting them in anyway."

__

"And do you think _she_ hurt her kids?"

__

"I don't know. Maybe she did, and maybe she really did lose them. It's hard to tell when you can only see a tiny part of the big picture. But it looks like it hurt her, either way."

__

"Is that why she did that? She really crashed her car, and it wasn't an accident like they said, because she missed them and wanted to see them again?" Percy shudders at the idea of Beryl Grace swerving off the road, desperate to reunite with her kids. "D'you think Thalia's out there?"

__

"I think you're staying a little past your bedtime, kiddo. That happened a long time ago. Don't worry about it."

__

Mom stays in their room that night and falls asleep next to Percy. He can't sleep though, he's gotten used to long nights in front of the TV, keeping Addie entertained, Gabe at peace, and waiting for Mom to get back from her long shifts, come home to their crappy two-room apartment with the exposed pipes, the peeling paint and rusted fire escape, with the weather always feeling the strongest in their room so he's either sweating during the summer or freezing to death during winter.

__

He can't sleep. So he thinks about Thalia and the way she made storms reach out to her, about her brother who was just a baby, about their mother with her painful-looking smiles and familiarly watery eyes and red nose. Percy likes to think that maybe, while he's in bed worrying himself over, Thalia and Jason are alive. Maybe, he thinks as his eyes start to get heavy, they watched the show too and where they are, they're laughing at it.

__


	2. March 23, 2003

Percy's thirteen and —

Okay, right, _look_ , he's thirteen and he's a boy and he's not dumb, despite what his classmates or teachers might think. Sure he might have trouble reading and writing, but he's good at math and he's a quick thinker and he knows —

He _knows_ okay, he —

Percy knows that, _technically_ , it's weird, right? It's weird for boys to consider other boys _pretty_ , or _handsome_ , or _attractive_ , or anything that puts the boys and physical appearance in positive terms. Guys are _cool_ and they're _tough_ and you want to _be_ like guys. You see your cool neighbor teaching you some skating tricks and you're more focused on how his kick-flips, not on how his sienna — he learned that word in class — cheeks and forehead are flushed red and how he has _really nice_ eyes, the way he tilts his head to the side and how his hand settles on your waist when it’s your turn to try the move.

Right. Okay. Percy gets that.

But maybe, he thinks, actors get to be the exception.

Because actors, see they get paid to be cool and attractive. You're supposed to think that way about them! So it's totally fine, Percy reasons, if he's half-drooling over the parade of girl and guy actors on TV. No one would like actors or go see their movies if they weren't good-looking. Cased closed. Checkmate. Right.

_Right?_

When Tristan McLean walks on the red carpet, in a plain black suit and with his long hair capturing the flashes of the cameras, Percy feels his throat close up and his face burn like he's getting a fever. Maybe this is how that kid in his science class felt when he got that bad allergic reaction after sneaking a bite of a chocolate bar. Anaphylactic shock, they called it, and maybe Percy doesn't think guy actors are hot, maybe he's just allergic to beauty and what he feels whenever he sees them is just his body telling him he's dying. Yeah, that makes sense.

And if it happens sometimes — mostly, _majorly_ — with Tristan McLean, it's his teacher's fault. They watched one of his movies in class, the one that got him nominated for an Oscar that year, Percy can't remember the title but it was one of the few movies his ADHD allowed him to watch in one sitting, the only bad thing was that the subtitles were too small and half of the film was in Cherokee. But it was sweet, and sad too, with a happy ending. The girls in class cried and some boys did too. At one point in the movie Tristan McLean took off his shirt and the camera spent a few gratuitous seconds on his lean torso while he planted some flowers and Percy coughed loudly, trying hard not to look anyone in the eye, and when he went to bed that night he really couldn't forget about Tristan McLean working up a sweat in his garden.

Point is: Tristan McLean shows up on screen, and Percy grips his pencil a little too tight.

Definitely his teacher's fault.

Addie kicks him in the knee from her place next to him on one of the recreation room's patterned sofas, narrowly avoiding the pile of books between them. She's working on her homework — struggling really, numbers float for her the way words do for him, but she likes her science class and wants to get a good grade — and she looks at him like she's not impressed by how Percy's turning red as a tomato. It's an impressive look for a 10-year-old with big blue bug eyes like hers, and hair that makes her look like she's trying to be the next Rapunzel.

"You're hyperventilating." And after a slightly long pause, "He's not even _that_ cute."

"Shut up!" Percy can feel the other students looking at them, can hear them whispering, and he'd really appreciate it if Addie didn't talk so loud. "What do you know, you don't even like boys."

"Boys are gross," she says with the certainty of a 10-year-old who thinks they know everything.

"You're just saying that cause you're a kid, but when you're older you're gonna be all gross and kissy over boys too."

Addie kicks him again, this time with a little more force. "No I won't!"

Percy sticks his tongue out and kicks his sister back, sending the books to the ground. He has homework to do too, but it's not due til Wednesday, and that's three days away and Tristan McLean is on the Oscars. He'll watch the Oscars.

Tristan stops the mini-interview he's doing — _Mr. McLean, Mr. McLean! Will your daughter follow in your footsteps? What's your next project? Are you dating anyone? Where is your daughter's mother tonight? Do you think your costar will win any awards tonight? Is it true that your daughter was placed in a special school for children with learning disabilities?_ — and gestures off screen for someone. He doesn't give them a chance to even walk before he's reaching for them, and pulling to his side a girl, about as old as Percy, the same daughter people have been asking about all night.

If Tristan McLean made Percy go into anaphylactic shock, Piper McLean killed him.

She looks like her dad. Brown skin, lean and tall, black hair so thick and straight and doesnt-suffer-when-there's-humidity looking that Percy's kinda jealous. They have the same nose and shape of the eyes, her chin might be a bit more square and her cheekbones lower, but it’s the same warmth to their face and eyes that shine with a light of their own. She's wearing a pink dress and lime green sneakers, and oh wow that's an ugly shade of pink for a dress, and that's way too much fabric, but somehow even with that poofy mess and ridiculous bright she doesn’t look like a rejected pompom. The lights play games with her eyes and make them change color: usually the same dark brown as Tristan's, sometimes so dark they look impossibly black, sometimes so pale they almost seem dull and gray. But still, Piper looks —

She looks —

 _Yeah_.

Addie looks up when she hears Percy gasp for air, and when she turns to the screen she drops her pencil.

In the thirteen years Percy's lived with Addie, he's never really seen her show this expression. He's seen her get so angry all she can do is fist her hair and scream, shutdown from sensory overload, get excited with bugs and dissolve into happiness in the form of contagious laughter and flapping hands. But “ _red-faced imitation of a dying fish_ ” is new for her, even though he knows that familiar expression well.

Percy smiles. "So, uh, I guess no boys," he whispers, holding back laughter.

"Shut up."

On TV, Piper McLean isn't too happy to be paraded for the cameras. Her dad keeps giving her that look Percy knows well, the “ _please try and stay in one place for ten minutes, I'm begging_ ”, look. She's keeping her head down, face covered by her hair and this is how it should be, Percy should be red-faced and closed-throat and shakey-handed for Piper McLean, who is pretty and his age and, most importantly, a girl.

"Don't you miss your mom, Piper," an overeager reporter in a long orange dress asks, shoving the microphone in her face. Piper's hands ball into tiny fists at the same time a knot forms in Percy's stomach. He knows that tone of voice even more, he's used to that question when it comes to his dad, except with Piper there's an edge to it that he hasn't heard before but he knows anyway is biting, mean. Like the interviewer knows something about Piper that others don't and wants to make fun of her for it. Under the flashing cameras, her eyes now seem rust-colored. Tristan McLean takes a sharp breath.

"She's perfect for you, Jackson." One of the girls from his grade is leaning over the couch. Percy doesn't remember her name but knows her well: she's loud and mean and smug about deciding to make Percy and Addie's lives miserable, and right now she's got her hand on the braid that falls over Addie's shoulder, ignoring how his sister squirms and pulls away only to be grabbed again. "You're exactly the same: your dad left you both because you're freaks, and her mom did too."

Percy grits his teeth and he can hear it, the gurgling of the pipes in the school. The girl smiles and one of teeth is crooked and he has half a mind to punch her there, in that stupid spot, just to shut her up. He stands up, ready to forget everything Mom and every other adult he's met has ever told him and just —

"Her eyes changed color."

Addie says it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Her voice comes up all of a sudden, wound up from having been grabbed by a someone she doesn't know, a brisk thing that catches him off guard. She's pulling at his sleeve, looking at some strange point in his forehead, eyebrows furrowing like she sees something interesting there. Percy takes a deep breath, counts to ten like every counselor tells him to do when he's angry. If he gets angry, she'll be bound to get angry too. All of the other students in the recreation room are looking at them, on the edge of their seats, waiting for a fight. _Set an example, Percy._

"What?"

"Piper's eyes. They changed color."

"You're so stupid," one kid says and another agrees, "No one's eyes change color."

Except onscreen the camera focuses on Piper sporadically, more interested in her dad once again, and he can see it. From between the strands of her hair her eyes aren't dark brown like Tristan’s anymore, like the rich earth in the planters Mom has at home that always smells so nice when it rains, with oregano and rosemary and other herbs growing in them. Piper's eyes are red now, not a trick of the light but truly brown-red, a color that isn't noticeable under the shadows at first but is clearly different than the one Percy knows he saw her with at first. Her hair too, it's not shiny and blue-black like it was when she came up on screen, it's dull instead, leaning more toward brown at the roots and looking dry and brittle, almost curling, _drawing_ into itself like live snakes recoiling for protection.

The girl pulls Addie's hair and says it again: _you're a fucking idiot, what's wrong with you? You're too old to be making stuff like that up_. But Percy knows his sister enough to know she doesn't make things up, not Addie, and _he knows what he saw too_ —

"Leave her alone!"

"You'd probably have more friends if you didn't spend so much time defending your freak of a sister." She pulls Addie's hair harder now, and Addie's hands are shaking, left hand tight around her pencil, she's fidgeting around like she does when she wants out. Percy's jaw tightens. "But I doubt that would work too. Who'd wanna spend time with you? We all saw you looking at the TV, and we heard you too. _Who'd wanna hang out with you, a stupid little fa_ -"

When one of the teacher's walks by, drawn in by the noise of screaming kids, it's hard to tell who did what first: they're not sure if Percy punched her in the nose, or if Addie jabbed her blunt pencil deep into the girl's thigh. The girl is crying in the middle of the rec room, screaming, everyone is screaming, saying that they hurt her on purpose, that she didn't do anything to them and they just ganged up on her for no reason.

Percy and Addie get expelled, of course. There's blood on Percy's shirt and on the pencil in Addie's hand. But for once it was worth it and in the moment before they get caught they smile victoriously and they're rearing their fists back for round two.

On the TV, Tristan McLean gives a beatific smile, and Piper McLean's is back to normal again: lush black hair, warm dark eyes. Absolutely normal in appearance.


End file.
